Page 46 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

He moved home from Dudley to Harborne in about 1940. It was discovered after his death that
Otto was seriously in debt so his estate was put into Administration under the Bankruptcy Act.

131 George Frederick CHAMBERLAIN (1885-1954) (Elected 6.12.1926; resigned 27.7.1931.) Hospital
Treasurer. Manager of Barclays Bank, Vicar Street branch and later the High
Street and Netherton branches, from 1925 until 1936 when he was
appointed manager of the Fitzalan Square Branch, Sheffield. He held
numerous other posts including Honorary Treasurer of Dudley Guest
Hospital, treasurer to Dudley Education Committee and to the Dudley Board
of Guardians (which provided relief to the poor), Treasurer of Dudley
Conservative Club and Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce. He was
also a scout-master. He started his career with Barclays Bank at age 16 as a
clerk at Cradley Heath, and then went to Hockley, Birmingham. During the
Great War he obtained a commission in the Dorset Regiment and served in France. He returned
to the Hockley branch, but in 1923 was appointed assistant manager at Dudley. Whilst working
in Dudley his home was at West Hagley.

132 Joseph BLACKHAM (1879-1966) (Elected 20.12.1926; membership terminated 8.3.1943.)
Manufacturing Optician. He was proprietor of J Blackham, Opticians, in Wolverhampton Street,
Dudley between about 1908 and 1963. The profession ran in the family. His older brother John
was assistant to their father Henry, optician and ‘refractionist’, practising in Wolverhampton as
H Blackham & Son, so Joseph may have started his career in his father’s business. Originally
from Wolverhampton he lived in Sedgley from the 1920s.

133 Arnold Joseph GRIMES, MM (1898-1971) (Elected 20.12.1926; resigned 22.4.1929.) Motor
Spirit Distributing. He was the regional representative of a ‘leading petroleum firm’, probably
Shell-Mex Ltd which had a distribution centre in Brierley Hill. He worked for that firm for 14
years until the mid 1930s. He then became manager, representative and supervisor for a firm
making asbestos packings for boilers etc. In 1939 he went into partnership with a Mr Thompson
and founded J W Thompson (Asbestos) Ltd, ‘boiler and pipe coverers’, of Halesowen, which
specialised in lagging equipment in factories, hospitals and other large premises. It grew to be
a substantial firm of thermal, acoustic and structural insulation engineers so after 21 years
moved to larger premises at Cradley Heath. In 1955 the two partners set up an associated
company Insulated Metal Roofs Ltd.
Arnold was born in Edgbaston, son of a Birmingham businessman who made some of the first
cycles seen in the city. He became a clerk on leaving school but in September 1914, when
claiming to be 19 but actually aged only 16, he enlisted in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. For
sixpence a day he served in France from March 1915 to January 1919 with just a few months
back home in 1916/17. He was disciplined in the field in August 1917 for ‘improper conversation
on the telephone contrary to orders’ and given 21 days Field Punishment No.2 (which would
appear to allow him to be kept in irons and subjected to hard labour!). However he redeemed
himself by being awarded the Military Medal the following year for bravery in the field.
He lived briefly in Wellington Road but moved to Rowley and then the Halesowen area. As a
result of his work he had over 30 years of exposure to asbestos so perhaps that is why, on his
death, he donated his body to the Birmingham University School of Anatomy for medical
research. ‘There will be no mourning or funeral service.’

134 Charles Turley GREEN (1879-1945) (Elected 17.1.1927; resigned 4.2.1929.) He was admitted in
the classification ‘Drysalter’, a dealer in chemical products such as dyes, gums, dried, tinned,
salted foods and edible oils, but his originally proposed classification was Crude Oil Distributing.
Although he lived near Burnt Tree, Tipton, he was a commercial traveller for the firm Arthur
Williams & Son of Broad Street, Birmingham, oil, colour and drysaltery merchants, which he